I’ve run into a number of problems with the CHOP exporter… it’s possible to get OPs into really weird states where you can’t identify which CHOP is exporting to the parameter. I’m not entirely sure what causes all of them, but I think one of them is caused by the fact that you can export the same CHOP to the same parameter more than once. This has a few strange side effects, such as the loss of the ability to export a different chop to that parameter without first tracking down the exporting CHOP and deleting it. I’ve also somehow gotten it into a state where when I export a single CHOP into one parameter, it exports the CHOP into more than one parameter. The only way to fix these issues, typically, is to got to CHOP’s CHOP Exporter and manually clear out all the entries.
A lot of these issues became apparent to me because the CHOP exporting interface is very hard to use. Dragging a CHOP channel into a parameter is a crapshoot… I often end up with the CHOP exported to a parameter above or below the one I intended. It would be really helpful if it highlighted the edit box that you’re about to export to, so you could be sure where you’re dragging the parameter to.
Also, it would be really great if you could remove an exported chop from the parameter itself. Say, by right-clicking the box and selecting “Remove exported CHOP” from a context menu or something like that. This would be a huge time-saver.
You should not be able to have 2 active exports to a single parameter. A dialog will warn you and force you to choose one of the two exports when there are 2 to the same destination.
To find the active CHOP exporting to any parameter, right-click on that parameter and at the bottom of the pop-up menu you’ll see the path of the exporting CHOP.
CHOPs should only export to the single parameter you drop it on. However, there is more advanced behavior for double and triple parameters like Scale (sx, sy, sz). If you drop on the name of the parameter, it will export to all 3 parms, but if you drop on a single field (sx or sy or sz), then just that single parm is exported to. I have never seen a CHOP export to multiple different parameters, so if you have an example you can send we’ll look at that asap.
“Remove Exported CHOP” is coming soon but the CHOP exporting UI will not be overhauled until later this year.
A useful thing to know is that, in the chop exporter, you can right click on one of those triangular thingies and select ‘clear chop mapping’ to unexport everything from a chop.
I have my own gripes about that “two chops export to the same destination dialog” I never make the right choice based on the info it gives. I’d love to have a ‘do nothing’ option that just cancels whatever stoopid thing I was dong to create the problem. Usually the troubles come from copying and pasting chops that are exported along with their destination chops. you need to make sure you use $OD in references to prevent this.
Hey Rod, have you recently tried this, since you last reported this problem we have changed the text to make it more obvious, and the old bug that did the opposite of your selection is fixed to. Just wondering how your recent interactions with it have been, still a problem?